


Death (act VI)

by QSF



Series: As We Fall [6]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: I played Inquisition, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 05:36:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QSF/pseuds/QSF
Summary: I played Inquisition and this one got stuck in my head.





	

_This is how it ends:  
Feet planted firmly in soggy ground, daggers in hand, smile etched sharply on his face._

_This is how it ends:  
Saving his allies so they can save the world from what his and his friends mistakes had unleashed._

_This is how it ends:  
Facing his fears in the most literal sense possible_.

...

Still… that last bit really sucked.

“Spiders…” Hawke couldn’t stop the groan as he stepped in front of the terror demon, bloated body, hairy legs, too many eyes and all of them focused directly on him. “Always the maker-damned spiders…”

He knew why, of course. His sister had told him, Andres had taught him, and experience had showed him that in the fade, all that existed was what you brought with you in your dreams.

Except… that was a load of bollocks now, wasn’t it?

The fade was supposed to be an ethereal realm of dreams and spirits, Hawke wasn’t a mage but he came from a long line of them, and he’d been part of rituals that enabled even his untrained mind to walk the dreams in a lucid state.  
That had been to save a boy. Now he was here to save the world. Not bad for a jumped up street thug and smuggler.

Except… it wasn’t really the same thing, was it?

He was here in the fade, literally, physically. This fade wasn’t a dream, it was all too real, with soggy ground smelling faintly of acid, ruins slowly crumbling in the shallow water. The fade wasn’t strange, or beautiful to him, it was a dead place clinging to a semblance of life. It was like…

Yes. It was like what parts of Ferelden had felt like after the blight. Nothing really grew right anymore, the ground slowly turning into marsh, the buildings falling in on themselves. It made sense, he supposed, the fade was based on his…

Except… this was different, wasn’t it?

The spirits they had met had taken different forms, yes, Cassandra had seen maggots where he had seen spiders, but everyone had seen the ruins and the distant sea, the floating rocks and weird statues screaming into the tormented heavens. The fade was a real place, and it was ruined.

He’d heard the story, time and time again. It was at the heart of the chantry’s teachings. Ambitious men broke into the fade to try to reach the Maker’s golden throne, and by doing so corrupted what they touched. Ambitious men. Ambitious Tevinter mages. Corypheus. The reason he was here, the reason why he had leaped into the abyss as it opened up, to…

“Pay attention, asshole!” Hawke wasn’t sure whether he had screamed the words at himself or at the spider who had started turning away from him to chase the juicier prey of the inquisitor. When the words  weren’t heeded, he bit down on his own fear and disgust and grabbed hold of one of the nearby legs to swing himself up and bury a dagger up its guts.

Real. It felt real. Not like fighting demons of fire and ice, but flesh and blood. Stinking, sickening blood, but it was there. Real. Not manifested. And the screech was as much from pain as it was from fury.

He should say something funny, he knew that, but he’d lost his knack somewhere after the hole in the sky opened up and the world turned even weirder. It was hard to joke when a rebellion he had helped start threw the world into almost as much pain and chaos as the blight. It was hard to laugh when he had spotted Anders acting funnier than normal, at first thinking the calling was coming and then recognizing the subtle fingers of Corypheus at work. Sending him away had been an act of desperation, getting him on a ship with Isabela to Rivani was the only thing they could think of at the time. Away from Orlais, to a place that still knew how to deal with spirits.

And maybe how to block their whispers.

“You know it is futile,” the demon growled, cuts dribbling ichor on the ground though it paid the wounds no heed. “You will lose him. Like you lost everything. Like your family lost everything… I will…”

Overhead, the greenish light of the rift suddenly blinked out, leaving the skies grey and blank.

“You will not go on vacation any time soon, from the looks.” Hawke smiled, giving the personified terror in front of him his best grin. “Sorry about that. Looks like the door just got slammed shut in your face.”

In his face as well, but he tried not to think about that. What mattered was that the Inquisitor had got away. It was up to them now, stopping Corypheus, saving the world.

...

_This is how it ends:  
Feet planted firmly in soggy ground, daggers in hand, smile etched sharply on his face._

_This is how it ends:  
One last fight, one final fight._

_This is how it ends._


End file.
